Gold
by thewritingtom
Summary: Gold diggers haunted by their past try to live in a world that has always shunted them


p class="MsoNormal"The sun had almost disappeared from the sky when one of the two raised their hand and the other stopped beside them. He who had stopped was the first to leave their horse, slowly leaving his steed before landing onto the dusty ground below. He pushed his hair out of his eyes, removing the dirty brown mop that had gradually fallen over his pale visage. A dirty pack was hung from his back, the material fading in places. He was of average height and weight, with some muscle on his arms, but he wasn't particularly intimidating. And his name was Jack./p  
p class="MsoNormal"Jack scanned the sands that surrounded him. They looked the same as the orange dunes that had appeared before him as they set off that morning, pricked with green cacti of varying heights, little spots of colour on an indifferent plane. They had been for around eleven hours in the saddle, and Jack could feel misery course through his veins as if his own blood had been flushed from him. The two had rode in near silence throughout the day. Noise was a salvo – neither had the energy to talk and neither had anything to discuss. It was as if they were family, Jack mused./p  
p class="MsoNormal""Stop 'ere" Jack heard his partner say. He spoke with a rough tongue, coarse from the dust of the desert. He was about twenty years Jack's senior, with darker hair and a more profound stubble colonising his chin./p  
p class="MsoNormal""You hungry?" he asked Jack as he stretched out his arms and loosened his aching muscles. Jack nodded quickly – their scant provisions were running low and he frequently found himself with a gnawing famine in his bones./p  
p class="MsoNormal""We got any food left?" Jack put the question to Brett carefully. The two had become slightly strained in their disjointed friendship, more built of need than respect and liking./p  
p class="MsoNormal""We got the horses" Brett chuckled to himself. "We'll have enough for the night."/p  
p class="MsoNormal""Just the night!" Jack tried to hide his horror, "We ain't due in Millsford for another two days"/p  
p class="MsoNormal""Relax kiddo, we're getting there tomorrow." Jack tried to mask his shock but failed. He had built up an illusion of a greater distance than it was, but he could not blame himself. After several days of sitting in a saddle on the same stallion, he could swear he was losing his sanity. But the promise of civilisation and comfort was his saviour./p  
p class="MsoNormal""What d'you need?" Jack asked as he gulped down the ends of his water. His throat was parched, and the relatively cool liquid was his cure./p  
p class="MsoNormal""Wood." Brett's response was brief as he busied himself with his equipment. Jack scoured the landscape for small cacti or, if lady luck was on his side, a piece of driftwood from somewhere. He began to stride out, leaving Brett with the horses and his lonesome./p  
p class="MsoNormal"Around half an hour later, a pylon of light pricked the darkening horizon, letting colour bleed into the infinite nothingness. Around the small fire sat the pair on the dusty ground, looking into the infinite depths of the inferno. They sat in unbroken silence for around an hour as the flames slowly ate their timber food, enjoying the blaze's warmth against the chill of the night./p  
p class="MsoNormal""What's the plan?" Jack asked Brett when the fire had nearly fallen to the wind./p  
p class="MsoNormal""We go in, we get the loot, we go out." Brett replied curtly. "We ain't messing around this time."/p  
p class="MsoNormal""Yeah," Jack thought for a moment, then added, "Is she gonna be there this time?"/p  
p class="MsoNormal"A chill seemed to descend on Brett as he said: "No, she won't. It'll be easy, she can't know about this." Jack nodded before Brett continued. "Since we're talking about her, I don't want none of your shenanigans this time. You cost us the score last time."/p  
p class="MsoNormal"Jack was humbled at this remark. He remembered the events in question with scarily vivid detail. They had set up outside the town as normal. They had dug for days, uncovering enough earth to find the gold. They were so close./p  
p class="MsoNormal"That night they had gone into the bar. A rousing tune was on the piano. Jack's face was ablaze with life as he drunk, emptying several tankards. He didn't remember saying anything about the dig, only Brett's look of horror after, etched in his retinas./p  
p class="MsoNormal"The next day, the spades had been moved. There were footsteps to and from. And a scrap of paper wedged underneath the tools: "Thanks for the loot, darling. I'm not done yet", ended with a kiss./p  
p class="MsoNormal"Silence fell upon them, its noise pounding on Jack's eardrums. The fire was reduced to mere embers, though still gave out heat and a slight facsimile of light. The crimson remains were few in number, each enrobed in dark grey ash./p  
p class="MsoNormal""Sleep" Brett said as the fire bled its final wound. "You'll need it tomorrow."/p  
p class="MsoNormal"Jack nodded as he rose to his feet. "G'night. Till tomorrow" Brett gave a slight laugh as response as he too rose to his feet. Jack looked in his pack for any cloth. He scrounged the last tangible remains of a blanket from its depths and lay them on a somewhat appealing pattern on the sand. He chucked his pack to form a simile of a pillow. After thirteen hours on the dusty roads, put he rested his head and not long after fell into a deep comatose./p 


End file.
